Strike Witches (Xbox 360)

Arena
Checkpoints OFF
5 Difficulty levels
6 Stages
Ship speed fixed, selectable at start
- - - - - - -
Developed by Cyberfront
Published by Cyberfront in 2010

It's difficult to find shooters inspired by other entertainment media that are held in high regard by the community. More often than not they don't go past the likes of pure fan service, being eventually ignored and relegated to sad footnotes. Does anyone seriously care about Geppy-X, Bokan To Ippatsu, Tekkaman Blade, Thunderbirds (NES), Gatchaman - The Shooting or Super Airwolf for the Mega Drive? Sure there are exceptions to this, such as Macross - Scrambled Valkyrie and Silver Surfer, but they're few and far between. In 2010 the category was expanded on the Xbox 360 with Strike Witches - Hakugin No Tsubasa, another shooter based on an anime/manga series. Exclusive and region-locked to Japanese consoles, the title is just one of several games produced to supposedly expand the reach of the base material.

Fans of the anime who can understand Japanese are at home here. The Story mode is full of (instantly skippable) dialogue intermissions and interaction between a multitude of characters. They are all teenage girls with propellers for legs, flying around with machineguns in an effort to stop an alien menace called Neuroi. It's an alternate reality setting that takes place during World War II. Luckily for us shmuppers, Arcade mode removes all the useless conversation and sudden interruptions, but the catch is that to unlock it you need to beat Story mode with one of the preset teams - and even so only the respective characters are unlocked. Continues are allowed to achieve this, and if the imposition sounds stupid at least you can take the chance to know the characters and stages during two hours and four clears (it takes roughly half an hour to complete the game).

On the outside Strike Witches looks like a combination of Trouble Shooter and Deathsmiles, but the default twin stick control scheme makes it a different experience. There's also a somewhat hidden arcade style control that doesn't use the right stick: the aim is locked whenever you shoot with a dedicated button (since the game clearly wasn't designed with this control scheme in mind I avoided it completely). All teams are comprised of three girls, with one of them being the leader and the others following her in a formation facing forwards, facing backwards or trailing. Enemies come from all sides and force the girls to move around the whole screen, with the team’s hitbox being a tiny red dot on the leader’s chest. With dual style controls the left stick is used to move, the right stick to aim and shoot. By default, RB switches the formation and LB/LT switches the leader. The last input is given by RT: it’s a special attack that combines the magical abilities of the trio into a concentrated blast that lasts as long as their power bars isn’t depleted. Each girl has her own power bar, which is not to be confused with the group's health bar.

Beware, these orange balls aren't collectible items...

All girls fly at different speeds, have different power bar recharging times and bear unique weapons, be it straight shots (vulcan, grenade, drill, intertwining wave pattern) or shots with mild spread (regular spread, w-shape spread, two machineguns). Some of them have special abilities such as homing auxiliary shots. Their weapons are always at nominal power when they’re leaders, getting down to a lower power level and a slower rate of fire whenever they’re following the lead. Different character combinations produce different special attacks, and most of the fun while learning the game is in the process of testing several teams to see which works best for you.

The scoring side of Strike Witches has two layers to be explored. The first one is collecting the crosses left by destroyed enemies, which are sucked in automatically if they’re within a certain range. The first hundred is worth 1.000 each (bronze), the second hundred is worth 10.000 each (silver) and after 200 crosses collected each one will be worth 100.000 points (golden). It’s pretty simple and straightforward. The second layer in the scoring system revolves around extracting more crosses than usual by using the special attack. Doing it is not that simple though. If all girls have their power meters full a special attack comes with invincibility (indicated by the blue aura around them, which also cancels bullets). Once the special attack is over (either because the power bar of the leader is depleted or because you let go of the trigger) the recharge process takes a few seconds to start, during which you cannot activate it again. Once the recharging starts the special attack can be used again, but this time the girls are not invincible - a special attack with invincibility is only possible when a subtle sound cue is heard, a clear signal that the recharge is finished for all of them. Important: the recharge cycle will only start if the special attack trigger is not pressed, if you keep pushing it the power bars will remain where they are and no special attacks will ever come out.

At the end of the stage the player is given a bonus based on the number of crosses collected, destroyed enemies and hits taken. Crosses × enemies × 10.000 equals nominal bonus - the more hits you suffer the less of this bonus you achieve. Speaking of getting hit, if the eight health cells are gone it’s GAME OVER. There are no recovery items (actually there are no items at all besides crosses), but the health bar is replenished at the start of every stage. This alone brings the challenge to reasonable levels even though things get quite hectic close to the end, where memorization and careful use of the special attacks become more important. Fortunately it’s possible to practice each stage separately.

Stage 4
(courtesy of YouTube user ALS384)

Given the unsuspected depth of the scoring system, the lowest point in Strike Witches is in the level design. The catchy introduction and HD renderings of the characters are cool, as well as the character art in transition screens, the good variety of weapons and the intensity of later sections in the game, but for a shooter that scrolls horizontally it’s a bit weird that there are absolutely no obstacles. All you see is the vastness of the skies according to the unique theme of each stage, with a few exceptions like the tunnel in the second level or the descent into the destroyed landscape of the fifth stage. All bosses are variations of the same enemy, a red shape-shifting creature that takes the form of jets, tanks, spiders and all kinds of mechanical things. The objective is to defeat each successive form to expose and destroy its pink core. Even though these bosses have the most varied shot and movement patterns, it gets tiring to see the same checkerboard textures at the end of every level. On top of that, every single enemy is red or dark with red details. Was it so hard to put some green or blue?

Another aspect that bugs me a little is character speed. Even the slowest girl still moves too fast for my taste. When enemies swarm from all sides the act of dodging often results in a collision because I can’t control my leader properly, and the best way to deal with it is to be proactive so that dodging becomes less necessary. Sometimes a hit will take away two health cells, particularly when the offenders are those pesky lasers or when you get rammed by a large enemy. Lastly, I don’t mind the fact the menus are all in Japanese, but I wish the developer had added actual Roman names to the characters in the Arcade mode selection screen. It’s tough to memorize all of them going just by their cute faces.

 Click for a larger picture of the menus translation for Strike Witches
(many thanks to Jorge and SoftOtaku)

Is bland design enough to qualify the game as pure fan service? I don’t think so. Overall Strike Witches comes out as a feeble yet mildly fun shooter. Non-shmuppers will be able to credit-feed to the end, but will have no access to the true last boss (only prerequisite is to get there on a single credit). Although simple, the scoring system is engaging and offers enough depth for those who play for higher stakes, so the game at least tries to cater to all kinds of gamers. The music isn’t remarkable but fares better than the misguided graphic design. Be prepared for loads of anime voices though.

The only extra in the limited edition of Strike Witches for the Xbox 360 is a figurine of protagonist Yoshika Miyafuji. The game wasn't very well received by the shmup community, but the popularity of the series was enough to guarantee a port for the PSP in 2012. On the 360 my best high score in Arcade mode on NORMAL is the one below, playing with Gertrud Barkhorn, Lynette Bishop and Perrine Clostermann. Perrine is a must for me because of her electrified homing shots!

Hyper Duel (Saturn)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF
4 Difficulty levels
8 Stages
Ship speed fixed, selectable at start
- - - - - - -
Developed by Technosoft
Published by Technosoft in 1996

All well-known shmup developers originated in the arcade scene. Technosoft is unique in this regard, in that the company’s core base was always in the home console market. Hyper Duel was just the second but also the last arcade game made by them. For those wondering, the only other arcade title Technosoft developed was Thunder Force AC, a market afterthought built on the phenomenal success of Thunder Force III. Contrary to what some people think, Blast Wind was never released for the arcades.

The Saturn port for Hyper Duel came out a couple of years after the arcade original and quickly became one of the rarest and most sought after shooters for the system. It’s undeniable that the game carries a strong Thunder Force vibe, with the same type of fast-paced action and graphics that somewhat resemble that series. Hyper Duel is a reasonably shorter shmup though, and it’s a got a different kind of challenge since it’s obviously aimed at coin eating. The best thing about the port is that the CD includes both the unaltered arcade version and an updated Saturn mode with enhanced graphics and difficulty. It’s pretty much the same game but the tweaks are all for the better, and the exclusive arrange version practically justifies the hype if you’re a Technosoft fan. For those who dig extra stuff in their ports, let it be known that the package also comes with a nice animated intro and additional save functionality for playtime stats.

In order to have a clearer idea of the differences between both iterations of the game I decided to tackle the arcade version first, playing the Saturn mode only after I had cleared it. Basics are the same for both versions, starting with the three “buster-gear” ships available for selection, so I’ll describe the features of the arcade mode first.

Inside this badass red robot is a lovely 21 year-old girl

All pilots/ships are capable of battling the enemy in two forms: ship and armor. Button A activates ship mode and fires the default pattern for each character. Button B activates armor mode and turns the ship into a slow-moving robot capable of firing a thicker beam in different angles. While the ship form allows the player to move faster and actually dodge stuff, the armor form sacrifices speed and size in favor of power and coverage. It’s possible to shoot at 45 degrees up and down by moving up and down, whereas any horizontal displacement doesn’t affect the beam’s direction. The problem with the armor form is that controlling it is a cumbersome task, and should only be done once the enemy pattern is thoroughly known.

Special attacks are triggered by combining both shot types. While in ship form, press the armor button to deploy two stationary orbs above and below the ship to shoot an extra rotating fire pattern. While in armor form, press the ship button to deploy two rotating orbs that add extra firepower to the armor beam. Special attacks are gauged by an energy meter that either refills itself slowly or gets refilled by a good chunk if you take a B item. Besides their obvious offensive nature, special attacks are also good for defense because the orbs are capable of absorbing enemy bullets, even if the special attack meter is empty.

Ship/armor is powered up by taking the P items brought by destroyed carriers. It takes three to achieve maximum power, and small but helpful homing missiles are granted with the second power-up. Sometimes the carriers will drop an item that cycles between T and G, which generate helpers that follow the ship around and provide automatic extra firepower. T (Tracer) creates a small ship that hovers around you and shoots forward, while G (Gunner) creates a smaller independent mecha that aims and shoots at enemies at will. It’s possible to have up to three of these following you around, and each helper can take five hits before dying. Gunners are good to deal with slow enemies, but they’re quite unpredictable. Sometimes they’ll drift off screen for a long spell and return all of a sudden, or stupidly get in the way of enemies and bullets. Tracers are a good choice if you’re able to keep a safe distance from enemies and destroy them before they shoot.

As I mentioned above, the fast paced style of Hyper Duel lends itself to open comparisons with the Thunder Force series, but because of its arcade origins Hyper Duel is a much more straightforward experience. All stages are short but never dull, demanding aggressive play and constant use of the special attacks, either because of enemies that appear from behind or in response to enemies that threaten to dangerously clutter the screen. There’s a progression between stages that sees the ship/mecha starting in outer space, scrambling across tunnels, descending and taking off from planet landscapes and facing a huge spaceship at the end. All of this is infused with varying difficulty, which makes Hyper Duel the only Technosoft shooter that adopts a rank system. It’s quite simple: live longer and face stronger enemies and bullets. Rank isn’t that taxing in the arcade version though, at least when compared to the Saturn version.

Introduction and initial stages of Hyper Duel - Sega Saturn version

(courtesy of YouTube user LonerGamerBlogspot)

The best thing about the Saturn arrange mode is that it allows the player to lock the armor weapon in place with a third button, thus eliminating an inherent weakness of the arcade version’s gameplay. The game as a whole is prettier, with a lot more color and much better music. On the other hand, rank is definitely more aggressive and further heightens the challenge. There’s a notorious increase in difficulty on bosses, for instance. The 6th one spits even more bullets, and the odds of surviving the final battle are only in your favor if you manage to get there with a good number of spare lives. That’s why the two extends at 500.000 and 1,5 million points are very much welcome.

Pilots Keith, Lisa and Lloyd are all equally fine, but Lloyd is the most unbalanced one - he’s got the most powerful ship form but his armor weapon has a very limited range. Keith’s trademark is a spread pattern, with Lisa standing between the colleagues with a focused laser shot. She’s the fastest and doc Lloyd’s the slowest, but speed isn’t really a defining characteristic when choosing the pilot. Lisa does have the best special attack when in ship mode, which is good to kill those stray drones and secure that perfect bonus. By the way, this bonus is just one of the features that comprise the scoring system of Hyper Duel. Other rewards when a boss is beaten include a stage completion bonus, 10.000 points for each helper that comes out alive and another bonus based on the energy left in the special attack meter. Don’t forget that whenever you stop moving the score counter increases slowly (roughly 100 points for each 3 seconds). Lastly, watch out for the floating crates of the 5th stage, which unfolds like a bonus level: each chip you take after destroying them is eventually worth 10.000 points; if you just crack a crate open without destroying it chips keep coming out until it leaves the screen. All scoring techniques are the same for both game versions.

Although solid and relatively fun, Hyper Duel barely escapes the fate of being a drab shooter due to a couple of very recognizable difficulty spikes and a scoring system that encourages greed (when stupid deaths abound). While the rest of the game is fairly manageable, defeating bosses 6 and 8 is always nerve-wrecking. It’s really cool to have the 4th boss fighting alongside you during the final showdown though, you almost feel bad when he’s assimilated by that evil creature.

I beat Arcade mode with Lisa and Saturn mode with Keith, both on NORMAL, respective pictures below.

 

Gradius II (NES)

Horizontal
Checkpoints ON
1 Difficulty level
6 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Konami
Published by Konami in 1988

First there was Gradius, the absolute classic. Then came Salamander/Life Force, the bastard albeit sympathetic off-shoot. And here we have Gradius II, the sequel to the original game. Contrary to what anyone would think given the massive success of the first chapter, this particular port never left Japan. I was always intrigued by this, but now I have some foggy theories for why Konami didn’t bother to bring it over from Famicom to NES territory.

Arcade Gradius II is a very polished shooter that excels at teaching the player the meaning of failure. Adapting such material to 8-bit standards must have been tough, or at least tougher than making the same transition for Gradius. On aesthetical merits alone Gradius II on the NES is decent, downscaling the original material in an effective way while adding a few extra bits of exclusive design (my only complaint is the washed out color palette in a few sections). Where it all falls apart though is in the challenge factor. It’s as if Konami had forgotten how hard a Gradius game should be. For seasoned Gradius fans and players, Gradius II on the NES is a laughable joke because it lacks the shooter “sting” that has been a trademark of the series since it started.

Vic Viper does not appear on screen until you start a credit. There are four weapon configurations to choose from, ranging from the regular array seen in Gradius to new options with photon torpedoes in place of missiles, tail gun replacing double shot and ripple laser instead of regular laser. The old frontal shield is gone and is permanently replaced by the force field for all configurations. As the game starts the drill remains the same: collect capsules, activate the highlighted slots of the weapon array to get the upgrades and be on your guard for whatever comes your way.

Crystals are purple!

Despite the utter lack of intensity, this port deserves at least a mention for the little tweaks made to the basic gameplay. Similar to what had been previously done in Parodius, double shot/tail gun and both lasers can be powered up twice for a greater firepower level. Contrary to the limitations seen in Gradius and Salamander, here you can get up to four options instead of two (for those wondering, Life Force allows three options). Speaking of options, once you get four of them you’ll notice that the option slot in the weapon array is still available. Activate it one last time and all options will circle the ship for a brief while, practically giving it a close-range protection against nearby enemies. Last but not least, the force field is the size of the ship, so now there are no worries about depleting it just by grazing walls. It’s an ugly force field though, I wish Konami had kept the original shield.

If one considers the pre-stage (that short section with the incoming wave drones that bring capsules) as the checkpoint for the start of a level, the conclusion is that this game has six stages. Some stages of the original game were combined into one here, such as the volcano and crystal levels (3rd) and the boss rush, high speed and fortress sections (5th). Some parts have no bosses anymore (volcano and high speed), one boss was replaced with a different version (the eye-spitting reject from Salamander in the boss rush) and a new extra skull boss appears at the end of the 2nd stage. The final level is explicitly inspired by Salamander, complete with organic nets and huge, cheap spikes protruding from walls. Speaking of cheapness, the worst offenders are the first and the final stages, where you’ll inevitably die until you memorize the path amidst the flame arches and those dreadful spikes.

Another specific trait of the NES Gradius II is that pretty much anything that moves or shoots can be destroyed, including wall tentacles, tips of volcanoes and the famous mechanical spider (all originally invincible). In a fashion similar to the first game on the NES, this one has an interesting characteristic regarding the rate of fire: there’s no autofire upon start, but once you get at least one option you just need to keep the button pressed to play normally without mashing it like crazy or having to use a turbo controller.

Two stages of Gradius II

(courtesy of YouTube user tigris6003)

Flicker gets overwhelmingly present in a few key areas, such as the section with the crystal blocks, but surprisingly enough slowdown isn’t much of a problem. I was afraid it would get out of hand when Vic Viper was equipped with four options. However, this seems to have been achieved at the expense of enemy bullets since bullet count is so low that you sometimes wonder if this is really a Gradius game. Pre-stage drones, for instance, will never shoot at you. It’s clear to me that these technical compromises ultimately killed the challenge. Add to that the merciful extend scheme, where a new life is granted for every 30.000 points scored, and the lack of any difficulty rise in further loops. The only difference I noticed is in the core barriers of the boss rush main enemy, which spew bullets when destroyed.

I’ve read information saying that the cartridge uses a special chip that provides, among other things, the digitized voices you hear when an upgrade is activated (very clear voices by the way). The strangest thing is that although the voices are nice and the music is good, sound effects are rather poor. For example, there’s no sound for when your shots hit the common drones. That could be one of the reasons why the game wasn’t ported over to the west, the other one would be the butchered difficulty that put the responsible people inside Konami to shame. For much better home ports check the Saturn, the Playstation or the PC Engine CD libraries.

Surely casual players won’t care about the downgraded difficulty, but for fans of the series Gradius II for the NES ends up being nothing but a forgettable experience. It’s fun while it lasts, but it’s got virtually no replay value. When you get to the fourth loop like I did and you notice that you have 73 spare lives you know something’s terribly wrong (the mechanical spider alone is worth something close to 10 extra lives). I completed two loops unscathed and died out of boredom a few times in the 3rd loop, but got back up with little to no sweat. I turned off the console after taking the picture in stage 4-1. The game was played with the type 1 configuration, no turbo controller was used.

Blazing Star (Neo Geo)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF
7 Difficulty levels
7 Stages
Ship speed fixed, selectable at start
- - - - - - -
Developed by Yumekobo
Published by Yumekobo in 1998

Although not a proper sequel to Pulstar, Blazing Star often receives the title for its graphical similarities with the former. Both games exude excellence and are regarded as highlights of the Neo Geo hardware. However, whereas Pulstar blatantly rips off the style of Irem’s R-Type, Blazing Star adopts a more straightforward approach towards the horizontal shooter formula, free of checkpoints and with a nice array of different spaceships to choose from (among these is Dino 246, the solo protagonist from Pulstar). It also allows 2-player co-op, something the previous game lacked.

Blazing Star for the Neo Geo AES is an extremely rare item, the only rarer shmup for this system I can think of is Twinkle Star Sprites. These days it's easier to play the game since it's also been made available for the Playstation Network and tablets/smart phones. It was originally released only in Japan, and much like Zero Wing part of its old fame comes from the Engrish that plagues the game from start to finish. There’s even a line of thought claiming that the word FAIL is the popular noun/interjection that we know today because of Blazing Star. Check it here, but note that the article is wrong when it states that the meme origin relates to a GAME OVER message. The text actually refers to a taunt displayed when the player fails to kill a stage boss within the allotted time limit.

As we all (don’t really) need to know, an intergalactic war was waged between planets and a powerful enemy enslaved humans for its evil deeds. Hope is once again alive as six pilots regain consciousness and get ready to exert great justice against the alien scum. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to take on the role of one of these pilots and fly through seven stages guarded by giant transforming machines of doom. Pre-rendered sprites create a swift 3D look on several backgrounds, colors are used and abused with awesome taste and the scrolling speed/direction shifts back and forth as you go. It’s pure and intense 16-bit shooting bliss. Another fine aspect of Blazing Star is the female announcer. At first listen she might be a little annoying, but soon enough I got used to her cheering. POWER-UP! BONUS! WO-HOO! The character art/treatment could’ve been a bit more fleshed out during the game, but considering this is a shooter the animated intro does a fine job with them.

Hell-Hound takes on the 3rd boss

Players need to use only two buttons to unleash the power of any of the ships selected. The first button shoots and activates a charge shot. The second button is only used to “break” the charge shot during its animation, making it behave in a totally different manner and imposing a brief recharge delay. Power-ups (Ps) will increase firepower up to four levels, further ones are worth 300 points each. All other items in the game have explicit influence on scoring, such as the character panels that form the word LUCKY, the winged orbs/spheres and the blue gems. The implicit influence of all items in the game, on the other hand, is what makes Blazing Star an intricate dynamic challenge that needs to be thoroughly learned if you want to extract the most from its scoring system.

Here’s a rundown of all ships and their weapons:

• Hell-Hound – regular fire: wide shots with mild spread, top and bottom home on enemies; charge: straight power stream; break: stream turns into a spread shot;
• Windina – regular fire: wave shot; charge: 3-way cluster bomb; break: homing clusters;
• Aryustailm – regular fire: straight shot; charge: flare; break: flare turns into a Darius-like shield;
• Peplos – regular fire: 3-way spread shot; charge and break: slightly smaller variation of Hell-Hound's weapons (note: Peplos does not power up!);
• Dino 135 – regular fire: 3-way straight shot with directional pods (pods will get fixed in place with fast tapping); charge: wave blast; break: wave pattern scatters out;
• Dino 246 – regular fire: single shot with missiles and directional pods (pods will get fixed in place with fast tapping); charge: single power shot; break: cluster explosions.

All ships have distinct speeds, with differing details as to how their weapons behave. Aryustailm's charging time is longer and its break shield needs considerably more frames to be activated after the flare is out. Dino 135's break is useless. Pulstar's Dino 246 has a permanent R-Type force on its nose, but is not allowed to fire during the cooldown period after the break. Everything considered, Hell-Hound and Windina are my favorites but any of the ships is fine if you just want to blast your way through the game mindlessly. The real deal will only show up when you decide to score higher, and that comes with a healthy amount of techniques and secrets. Basic scoring devices involve (1) killing multiple enemies with the charge shot in order to apply multipliers to their base value and (2) collecting all blue gems to increase their value from 300 up to 81.560 points. It takes a lot of gems to reach the maximum bonus, and unless you’re already maxed out for a while you can’t miss a single one or else their value will go down one step for each missed gem. The rule of thumb is that a blue gem will appear for every 8th enemy/bullet destroyed.

Now we come to the more intricate techniques, the ones related to increasing the number of on-screen objects and bullets. Spheres with wings, known as event items, are the answer for this. Event items appear from time to time and are apparently useless, but there are two ways of exploiting them. First method: release a sphere (any color), take it and refrain from shooting until you hear a sound cue as it leaves the screen; the next sphere will be larger and will contain a kanji inside; take it and all enemies destroyed with the regular shot will be converted into power-ups. Second method: keep releasing spheres but don’t take them; each successive color represents a multiplier that grows from ×2 (yellow) to ×128 (rainbow); take the rainbow sphere to apply the highest multiplier on all destroyed enemies. Long story short, rank is the answer to get more enemies/objects on screen. Rank is influenced by everything but is more affected by collecting successive power-ups. The more Ps you take the higher the aggressiveness of enemies and bosses. Therefore, method one above (the kanji event item) is the main source of rank boost because it allows lots of Ps to be collected. Allied with strategic use of the rainbow sphere, high rank play is the only way to achieve higher scores. It takes lots of practice and environment control because sometimes those damn items will float into walls or out of the screen before you can get to them.

Hey, poor player, get it more!

(courtesy of YouTube user SuperJobijoba)

Unfortunately, when you go for all power-ups and high rank play there is a serious point of concern in Blazing Star. Whenever you milk the first boss for power-ups sprite flicker kicks in heavily, making it hard to see his bullet spreads. Later on flicker assumes a new dimension as you reach the last form of the 6th boss: the first few streams of pink homing bullets are invisible! The only remedy is to anticipate their trajectory as they’re spawned from the turret. Hardware abuse or deliberate design choice? The good news (?) is that aside from these two instances (1st and 6th stages) I did not run into any other flicker issues in the game, but do you want to know what’s more aggravating? There are no extends in Blazing Star. It’s just those three lives, so GET SERIOUS, DON'T BE PANIC and don’t allow yourself to die before getting to that invisible fire curtain of death.

Even with the problems above Blazing Star strikes me as a superlative shooter. The difficulty curve is somewhat unbalanced (level 5 is a breeze while levels 3 and 6 are hard-hitters) but that’s not enough to hurt the impressive attention to details, the pop-fuzzy soundtrack or the sheer intensity of the game as a whole. Let’s not forget about the little secrets, such as the process of getting the last character panel in stage 3 or the blue gem walls that are triggered if you perform certain actions. These are not intuitive at all, the best way to learn is to watch someone do them. Upon completing a stage you’re awarded a few bonuses, and if you succeed on getting LUCKY there’s an additional reward as well. However, as you make progress you'll notice that these end-of-stage rewards have little weight in the overall score.

My 1CC run was done with Windina on the MVS difficulty setting. With Windina it's possible to play the game without any autofire because gentle tapping is enough to get a decent firing rate. That's absolutely not true with the Dino ships, for instance. In any case autofire does help, so I had it available to use in certain areas (PS2 controller via a Tototek adapter – a killer combination that’s nothing less than perfect). Note how the occasional slowdown (mostly on explosions and boss fights) makes it easier to get a fast firing rate just by regular tapping. Once the credit is over a few cool stat screens are displayed, showing data such as a performance table for all stages and your final power-up level. I didn’t get to photograph them, but I noticed I had maxed out the power-up counter (255) in the credit below.

Imperium (SNES)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
3 Difficulty levels
6 Stages
Ship speed selectable
- - - - - - -
Developed by Vic Tokai
Published by Vic Tokai in 1992

Once upon a time a video game company named Compile created a shmup series called Aleste, which in some of its latest installments adopted mecha-based designs for character sprites instead of the well-known spaceship of old. It was a very recognizable trademark, made popular by the success of games like MUSHA, Spriggan and Robo Aleste. Much less known or successful, developer Vic Tokai dared to mimic these aesthetics with Imperium, which seems to be a downgraded offshoot from the games above. It’s not possible to envision the similarity going by the game box alone, it actually reminds me of a high-tech robot brawler instead of a proper shooter.

Known as Armored Maneuverer Dion in Japan, Imperium tells the story of an alien invasion to Earth in the near future. A powerful robot is sent into battle to free the cities occupied by the evil aliens and to crush the enemy base. It’s up to the player to guide Imperium (the robot) across six long stages over urban landscapes, forest, seas, desert, a large spaceship, moon bases, outer space voids and the mandatory alien fortress. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for a 16-bit shooter, but seeing the game in action might certainly lead unaware spectators to wonder if it’s yet another entry into the Aleste series. However, with the exception of the flying robot Imperium has little in common with Compile’s more famous shooters, especially on the gameplay front.

Patrolling the surface of the moon

Right off the bat you notice that lives consist of a health meter with five hit points. Lose them all and the game ends. In order to recover health and power up Imperium it’s necessary to kill enemies and add their value to the EXP counter, a convenient substitute to the regular score counter. A lower counter title NEXT EXP (N·EXP) tells how many points you need to reach the next upgrade and recover one bit of health. Starting out with just a straight vulcan weapon at level 1, you subsequently get a wave shot, a laser and a directional sparkling shot (fires in the opposite direction you’re pointing at). Further upgrades will boost the weapon power to level 2 and level 3 (maximum). Getting hit will take away one health point and downgrade the currently used weapon by one level.

The control scheme uses all four face buttons in the controller: by default Y shoots, B selects the weapon (left → right), X selects the speed (out of 4 choices) and A triggers the bomb. The more you advance in the game the more important higher speeds become. Bombing causes the screen to be raided by a series of missiles that damage everything on screen, wipe regular bullets and provide brief invincibility to the robot. Since upgrades are score-based the only item you’ll come across in the game is the extra bomb, which is always released by specific large enemies within the stages. Shooting and bombing comprise the basics, but selecting the most appropriate weapon for each enemy and correctly controlling speed are what really helps to achieve victory in this tough shooter. Making mistakes with the buttons is the main cause of failure in the beginning, and while it’s possible to reconfigure everything it’s just weird that you can’t remap them to the controller shoulders (as I would’ve done).

Even with the bullet jerkiness – which requires a slightly different approach to dodging – Imperium has a considerably decent difficulty curve in its first half. Enemies will arrive in slower and foreseeable patterns. Harm to the upgrade scheme will only happen after you’ve acquired all four weapons, therefore you can allow yourself to take a few hits in the process. Bosses are the main challenge and can give a little trouble, such as the ones who are only vulnerable for a short time window (2nd mid-boss and 3rd boss). However, once the 4th stage starts drones will swarm faster and more aggressively from both sides and from below. Large battleships will clutter the screen with strong minions and unless you have a level 3 vulcan or laser you’re in deep trouble. Several fast scrolling sections with lots of turrets firing blazing fast bullets will test your ability to keep that wave weapon maxed out. The increase in difficulty is so steep that the whole stage 4 seems to have been designed to screw the player over and over, and the three available continues aren’t of much use because you can’t do enough damage with all weapons starting at level 1.

Opening and first stage

(courtesy of YouTube user SaSheblShoot)

Backgrounds in Imperium are mostly quite poor, but this is somewhat disguised by several abrupt variations in scrolling speed. Although the overall enemy design is of the same caliber, a bit more character was given to bosses and mid-bosses. They’re often static-looking and devoid of animation but move around a lot, and once again the 4th stage comes to mind with its insect-lady boss, definitely the toughest of them all. The good news is that getting used to the 4th stage makes it easier to get to the end of the game. At this point general gameplay gets a bit predictable: if an enemy wave comes from the left you can bet another one will arrive from the right. All weapons in the game are equally useful, and you can even use them in conjunction with the slowdown to make the game easier. In regular circumstances slowdown kicks in when too many enemies/bullets are on screen, but a good example of how to exploit it is on the fight against the 5th boss: during his energy ball attack a level 3 laser will cause enough slowdown to move around safely with speed set to 4. Any other weapon power level takes away the slowdown and leads to a harder battle.

Imperium’s worst problem besides its weird frame rate and the sudden difficulty spike is the amount of dead space. There are long sections where nothing happens, especially in stage 3. Although it’s no disaster, there’s nothing special about the soundtrack. Infamous mode 7 appears in a neat rotation effect during the game’s introduction but is rather shy during the game itself, with a few zooming enemies here and there. The rip-off stench slowly fades as you start to realize the game is tougher than the regular Compile mecha shmup, but this doesn’t mean it’s more fun, not even close. It’s a dry, emotionless ride best suited to grinders and to curious Compile fans.

Since there’s no high score display in this game I paused right after I killed the last boss and took the picture below (NORMAL). After the credits roll you get stuck in an end screen and need to reset the console to keep playing.

Parodius Da! (SNES)

Horizontal
Checkpoints ON
7 Difficulty levels
11 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Konami
Published by Konami in 1992

Of all ports produced by Konami for Parodius Da!, the second chapter of the now classic Parodius spin-off series of Gradius, the one made for the Super Nintendo strikes me as the most interesting of them all. The game was already long by regular standards, but Konami went the extra mile and added another full-fledged level before the final fortress, turning the game into a loopable 11-stage behemoth of Gradius-infused fun. It’s yet another proof that Konami loved the SNES hardware as far as shmups go, so if you’ve got the console and haven’t tried this particular version of Parodius Da! yet you’re missing out on a great game, which didn’t get a release in Western shores but can be properly savored with the Japanese and European editions (in Europe it appeared under the title Parodius - Non-Sense Fantasy).

Parody wasn’t really a strong trait of Parodius on the MSX, the first game. In Parodius Da!, however, three Gradius games (and Salamander) are taken as direct inspiration for stages and enemies, as hinted in the several screens of the introduction sequence. From Gradius we get the volcano stage and the last stage/boss. Gradius II is there in the form of the galactic dancer and the bald eagle with the USA hat of the second stage. Bubbles (some of them with nymphs inside) are the main contribution of Gradius III. Even the first game is parodied since the penguin boss reappears in the first stage. R-Type receives a homage on the spaceship level, the only one where moai statues appear – watch out for the female moai boss and the dirty prank related to her projectiles.

The experience of approaching the game is made different according to the character chosen. It’s possible to play it as pure Gradius, since Vic Viper possesses all capabilities from the first Gradius game. The same old rules apply: collect capsules to highlight a weapon array. If you decide to play the game on "manual power-up" you'll need to activate the weapon array slots with a dedicated button to get the desired upgrade, be it speed, missile, double shot, laser, option or shield. Choosing "auto power-up" will make the game activate the upgrades for the ship automatically (good for beginners or children, but not useful at all if you want to have full control of the ship). Since this is a Parodius game players must be aware of the new slot in the weapon array, the !? bogus switch. Activating this will take away all power from the ship and send it back to its default condition. !? is located between option and shield and normally offers no danger, unless you take one of the roulette capsules that makes the weapon array go crazy. If this happens the player should take the opportunity to exercise his/her ability to press the power-up button carefully.

Meow?!

All weapons are a bit different for the remaining characters of the game. Takosuke the Octopus uses a configuration inspired by the Salamander games, where tail gun replaces double shot and ripple laser replaces regular laser. Twinbee also has a tail gun but replaces laser with a 3-way shot. Pentaro the Penguin uses the combination of regular double shot and daggers with a cluster exploding effect. All characters have slight variations for missiles, with dedicated pre-stage musical themes and specific sprites for shield and power-up capsules.

Coming back to Parodius Da! on the SNES was relaxing, as it is with most of the games we’re familiarized with. It’s a little easier than the original Arcade original but just as fun. It could be just a vague impression from my sound setup, but I like how the bass seems more pronounced on the music for the SNES. Memory served me well on the strategies but I had forgotten how long the game actually is, so allow me to do a quick breakdown on all stages with some notes:

1. Beach level: an easy introduction to the gameplay, but be careful of the roulette capsule in the middle of the stage (or take it to get another option faster).
2. Circus level: clowns and incoming enemies can easily overwhelm, so hit them fast and hard. The dancer at the end of the stage is a lot easier than the original mechanical spider of Gradius II, just watch out for the lower penguins.
3. Pyramid level: the final part of the maze is tricky, it’s better to ignore the capsules so you don’t get crushed by the walls.
4. Volcano level: a big tree that runs back and forth might get you by surprise, as well as the towels from the sumo guys.
5. Spaceship level: an easy ride up until the boss. The green moai coming out of her mouth are dangerous but can be destroyed.
6. Pinball level: one of the toughest stages in the game. Stay centered, use double shot and try to take out stationary enemies as fast as you can. There are loads of roulette capsules and it’s really hard to come out of the stage without one.
7. Bubble level: whenever I reach this stage on one life I activate the !? power down switch at once to reset rank. Things get really nasty if I go on with a fully powered ship.
8. Ice cave level: another speed-up is definitely needed underwater, and being aggressive against all those fish is the best way to survive.
9. Graveyard level: watch out for the bones coming out of destroyed skeletons. I like to get through the umbrella section by staying in the center of the screen.
10. Bathhouse level: here’s the extra stage, with penguins and bathing pigs all over the place. The beer boss (or a glorified soap?) tosses bubbles in two different patterns but is quite easy to be dispatched.
11. Fortress level: a carbon-copy of the last stage from Gradius, complete with the penguin-cage and a joke of a last boss (instead of the evil brain we get an octopus, of course).

More than the actual gameplay being a bit toned down, what makes this port of Parodius Da! easier than its Arcade counterpart is the extend scheme: one extra life at 20.000 points and another one for every 100.000 points afterwards.

Omake stage in Parodius Da! for the Super Famicom
(courtesy of YouTube user CHuCHoX246)

Scoring in Parodius Da! has everything to do with yellow bells. Bells? Yes, bells just like in Konami's own Twin Bee. Enemies that are supposed to release power-up capsules will regularly drop bells instead, which change color as the player shoots them. Each consecutive yellow bell collected will increase its value from 500 to 10.000 points in five steps. If you let one bell pass by the next one will be back to 500 points. Keeping a constant stream of maxed out yellow bells is a nice rush and adds an extra dimension to the game. Other colors for bells yield special powers to the ship, such as a smart bomb (blue), three stationary energy bars (brown), enlarging invincibility (green) and a horn that displays Japanese kanji (white). Blue and brown are kept for the player to trigger them with a specific button, but remember that while any of these bells is active the shield cannot be used.

Another treat Konami included in the SNES port is an Omake (special) stage with a lollipop setting. This mode is a single level with way more items to collect and no checkpoints.

I always thought that mocking sound that plays every time you die can be annoying if you're struggling to get past a tougher section. On the other hand the GAME OVER music is outstanding, uplifting enough to make me forget about the mockery - penguins, cats and all - and consider this game a solid and easygoing entry into the Gradius way to shmup. My new high score was achieved with Vic Viper on defaults (difficulty 4), a humble improvement of 15% over my previous best. I died my last life in stage 2-2.


The parody continues on the SNES in Gokujyou Parodius.

Sine Mora (Xbox Live)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF
4 Difficulty levels
7 Stages
Ship speed fixed, selectable at start
- - - - - - -
Developed by Digital Reality/Grasshopper Manufacture
Published by Microsoft Studios in 2012

Ever since it came out Sine Mora generated strong polarized opinions on both sides of the shmup community spectrum. Long story short, it was highly praised by the mainstream gaming press but utterly desecrated by the so-called hardcore shmup fanbase. This relates easily to the neverending development battle that puts graphical lush against gameplay mechanics, a delicate dichotomy that defines and ultimately segregates the shoot'em up genre from all other types of gaming branches these days. I like when a game raises so many heated arguments because it makes me want to try it on a clean slate. On controversy alone Sine Mora is an undeniable winner, but here's my quick two cents: gameplay is really different (hence the hatred from hardcore people) but the game does try to cater to all segments of players (hence its mainstream success).

There are two main modes in Sine Mora: Story and Arcade. As its name implies, Story mode contains heavy doses of voice narration/dialogue, text messages and cut scenes in between the actual gameplay, as well as stage swapping and extensive interaction between a multitude of characters. Its target audience is the player who always thought of the absence of an explicit story as the Achilles' heel of shoot'em ups. Arcade mode, on the other hand, throws the player immediately into action on higher difficulty stakes, meaning it behaves more like a traditional shmup. Both modes have two difficulties each, Normal and Challenging (Story) and Hard and Insane (Arcade). The first thing I did when I fired up the game was try Story mode, only to be extremely bored by chunks of stuff who held me from actually playing the game - a lengthy unskippable tutorial and the aforementioned text, dialogue and cut scenes. That was the end of Story mode for me, so I have absolutely no clue of what's going on during those speeches in Hungarian.

The truth is that I play shmups to blow up stuff, if I want a story I read a book or go see a movie. Some people might fancy that much wording in a shooter, but for me it's enough to know that Sine Mora has a steampunk setting reminiscent of Steel Empire, only with gorgeous HD visuals and a new way to deal with lives. This is, in fact, its main departure from the norm. There are no lives in this game, instead the player must deal with time. If that dreaded timer reaches zero it's GAME OVER, so all efforts must be directed at keeping it at safe levels. Get more time by killing enemies and taking extend items, watch the timer deplete faster by getting hit. It's the same basic rule of all shmups, slightly disguised as something different. Real difficulty comes with the fact that every section has its own (sometimes quite low) time limit, and it's not possible to carry over extra time from one area to the next. Remaining time is always converted into points in what the game calls TIME STABILIZATION.

Hot as hell!

Upon starting a credit in Arcade mode you need to make three important choices. First there's the ship/plane: the Merenstein VI, the BS4-VR Soprano or the GE-22 Liberator. Ship choice defines main firepower (button A), but subweapons (button B) are associated with the pilot. There are seven pilots to choose from, each one with a very distinct subweapon. And then there's the capsule type that dictates how you activate the capsule power (RT): speed-up (slows down enemies and bullets), rollback (rewind time, even if you die) and reflection (protects the ship against all harm and deflects enemy bullets).

All ships start with pea shots, but soon enough power-ups show up from destroyed enemies. With one dreadful and very rare exception all items are useful. Here's a list from most to least important:

• power-up (red) - increases the ship's main shot power, maxing out at 10;
• shield (light blue) - protects the ship against 1 hit, leaving it invincible for 5 extra seconds;
• capsule (blue) - fills 1/4 of the capsule power bar;
• subweapon (green) - adds one subweapon to the stock (5 max);
• extra time (orange) - adds extra seconds to the timer;
• time extend (purple) - once the timer reaches zero some extra seconds are awarded (usually 10);
• piano (grayish/dark blue) - the screen freezes for a split-second and a piano falls over the ship → GAME OVER.

There's one item missing from the list above, the medal coin. This is where the scoring side of Sine Mora kicks in. Medals appear after every 5th enemy killed and increase in value from 1.000 up to 100.000 points, provided you don't miss a single one. Missing a medal will break the chain and send its value back to 1.000 points. Another part of the scoring system comes naturally: the multiplier. Play without getting hit and without using capsules or subweapons, and eventually it maxes out at ×9. Last but not least there's the end-of-stage bonus, which awards extra scoring for destruction ratio, hits not taken, unused continues and rank time allocation. Rank is the same old device that makes the game harder the better you perform on it, and here it's divided in classes C, B and A. If you play well the rank meter will gradually increase and reach class A, thus incurring in more and faster enemy bullets. Using capsules/subweapons and getting hit can send it back to grades B or C. The score is properly rewarded according to the amount of time you spend on these rank classes, and the greatest chunk of the end-of-stage bonus definitely comes from keeping a class A rank at all times. Note: there's no rank in Story mode.

Graphic design is the best aspect of Sine Mora, there's no doubt about it. However, beyond the eye candy and the basic rules about lives and time control lies a layered shooter that's relentlessly cruel. Getting past the first mid-boss Kolobok is reason enough for some players to give up Arcade mode. Thanks to the Story side of things every stage and boss has a specific name, something that lends personality to the game. Developers claim that Sine Mora was heavily influenced by Battle Garegga, Einhänder and Under Defeat, but it's obvious that this influence is purely aesthetical rather than functional (the almost invisible underwater missiles reminded me of Battle Garegga, the first half of stage 6 is a homage to Einhänder). All things considered though, it's clear that the Arcade mode in Sine Mora could've benefited from better balancing. While the pacing is okay (cut scenes can be accelerated with the left bumper) there's no warm-up at all once the game starts, it's just full throttle time-based pressure from the get go (Kolobok's fault). Bosses are somewhat uneven and vary greatly in difficulty, and despite a few hollow spaces here and there the player is bound to face all types of bullet shapes, lasers and missiles as beautiful landscapes go by.

Official launch trailer for Sine Mora
(courtesy of YouTube user and developer DigitalRealityGames)

Sine Mora offers a challenge that can definitely be classified as unique due to the timer scheme. It gets rewardingly fun once you get to know how to use the items at your disposal. However, the share of infuriating details is higher than usual, with a few single mistakes meaning instant GAME OVER (let's not even talk about the piano thing). For instance, once you get hit all your power-ups will scatter away, and if you're not fast enough to reclaim them they'll be gone for good. If this happens you're left hopeless and might as well kiss the credit a sorry goodbye, especially prior to boss fights (hint: if you're not using the rollback capsule and lose all power-ups prior to a tough part suicide at once to continue and at least replay the section for practice). Other tricky or cheap parts are the pipe transition with lasers that must be avoided by hiding behind the debris, the hydraulic columns of the furnace area and the train section after the Domus boss. It's practically impossible not to die when reaching these parts for the first time, an aspect that definitely qualifies Sine Mora as a heavy memorizer.

Memorizer it is, but that's a good thing to have on such a long game. Every enemy wave and boss will attack you the very same way, so progression isn't impaired by random enemy behavior. Randomness is reserved to item drops, with the exception of medal coins. Sometimes you get to the first boss with a level 7 firepower, sometimes it's a mere level 4. Sometimes the game gives plenty of items for you to face Kolobok, sometimes it just doesn't happen. Although this seems like bad design it doesn't bother so much after a while. What's truly bad about Sine Mora is the music, a sleep-inducing collection of themes that do absolutely nothing to match the beauty of the graphics. With such a pleasing design and at least two large, exquisitely animated bosses per stage it's just a shame that the music can't match the grandeur of the graphics. For what it's worth only Papa Carlo's and Ophan's themes sounded a bit decent.

Another minor reason for frustration is the fact that most of the pilots aren't readily available in Arcade mode, they must be unlocked by playing Story mode. Tying the knots between both game modes like this wasn't a wise move, regardless of the related customizations available on Score Attack and Boss Practice modes. For this reason I adopted default pilot Argus Pytel, the one with the seeker missiles as subweapon. My favorite capsule power is the "reflection" type, and the ship definitely has to be the G-22 Liberator. It's more effective at lower power levels and has a nice spread when fully powered-up. Here's my general strategy to shoot for higher scores: (1) always try to go into boss battles with a shield and (2) dodge everything without using subweapons or capsules to preserve the multiplier, (3) if you get hit take advantage of the invincibility provided by the shield.

As I mentioned above I skipped Story mode completely. I did notice that you get to play with several configurations of ship + pilot + capsule, with much less aggressive time constraints. Granted, it's great for beginners and lovers of storylines in games. Beating it probably serves as good preparation for the Arcade mode, with the extra challenge of spiralling suicide bullets in the Insane difficulty.

Here's my 1CC high score on Arcade mode, Hard, using the GE-22 Liberator ship piloted by Argus Pytel with reflection capsule type. No turbo fire was used (it is known that turbo controllers make the game easier). Unfortunately there is no offline high score table for Sine Mora. I'm glad I took the picture below after I beat the final boss - the online leaderboards are bugged and did not register the score, keeping it at a previous lower achievement.